The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1887-08-13
KENYONS VERSION.
His Five Years Rough Experience
In the West.

Bret Harte's "CicelyP' Yes. Well,
"That reminds me of somethin' right
in that suit. ="
We had it rough, Molly and 1, for
five years. We were New Englanders,
both of us; but | had come Westyears
before when l wasn't much more than
boy, to get rid of the lung fevers /
used to have every spring sure, and
may be the fall between thrown in. /
had nothing but my two hands to start
with; but as soon as I'd made begin
ning--a small one, of course-I went
back for Molly.
And then, as 1 said, for five years we
had it rough.
In the FIRST place, we were burned
out in the town, and never saved a
thing but the clothes we stood in and
my team. Then we started again out
on the edge of every thing, where land
was cheap, and it looked as if hard
work might count for something. That
time the Indians ran us of. Never
saw an IndisnP Well sir, you never
want to. / don't want to be hard on
any thing the Lord saw fit to make. l
suppose He knows what they are for
or what He meant them for-I know
there's good deal of talk lately about
their wrongs They've had 'em, sure
enough; may be don't see things all
round as l ought to. They say all gen.
eral rules bear hard on particular
cases. I'm one of the particular cases,
perhaps. Anyhow, they killed one of
the children thero-the girl, five years
old; shot her right in full siglt of the
cabin, and Molly hasn't got over it til
this day.
| picked up q few head of cattle
cheap that fall, and for year we
lived in wagon, camping and driv-
ing our cattle across the ranges. You
don't know what that life means for n
woman. take it month in and month
out Cooking over camp fire, and
not much of any thing to cook, any
how; clothes wet half the time; never
warm in winter nor cold in summer,
and never clean. That year the boy
died-snake-bit We were so far from
a settlement that we couldn't get a
doctor, and we buried him ourselves.
We got into cabin in the fall. -Four
of us, each one poorer than the others,
took section of Government land.
We had our teams and our health, and
we were down to bedrock; not much
OF any thing to lose and every thing to
gain. A man will work under such
circumstances, you'll find We built
in the middle on the adjoining corners
of our quarters, and so had little
settlement of our own. We did it for
thc sake of the women; for it made an
almighty sight of t"Pvel for us to get
over in the course of the day. They
were all New England women, slender
and spare, but solid grit clear through.
Plymouth Rock is pretty good stock.
Never u whimper nor 4 complaint out
Of one of them, though there wasn't 3
second frock in the crowd; and il
there was always corn-bread and
coffee enough for two in any Of the
Shanties il WASH t in ours. After awhile,
though, we had game enough-quai
and prairie chickens Prairie chick.
sns wouldn't be hired to touch one
now. 1 remember one day along To-
ward spring when Molly struck. We
had had quail and prairie chicken
prairie chicken and quail, three times ;
day ever since 1 could remember, il
seemed to me- She put her fork dowr
and pushed her plate away and JUS
quoted out Of the Bible. Not one day
nor two days nor five days, neither ter
days nor twenty days, but even until il
come out at your nostrils and be loath
some unto you" Molly knew the Bi
BILE.
1t really began to look as if we had
touched bottom. That next spring W,
got our crops in-corn laid by, rain
aud sunshine and hot weather all JUS
right; and now and then we would heal
a laugh from the houses.
But the day the grasshoppers cam,
there was mighty little laughing done